Lasagna

This is my mom's famous lasagna recipe.  It is the best lasagna I've ever eaten, hands down.  I never order lasagna at restaurants because I know it will never be as good as this lasagna. Seriously.  This recipe makes 2 trays worth of lasagna, mainly due to the sauce, but you can make only 1 tray and freeze the leftover sauce, or you can do what I do and make 2 trays and freeze the leftover lasagna.  I don't bake the second tray until I'm ready to eat a piece - I just stick it straight into the freezer after assembling it.

It's fairly simple: meat and mushrooms for the tomato sauce, cottage cheese (which is much better for you than ricotta), mozzarella, and parmesan to be sprinkled on top.

First you need to brown the ground beef in a sauce pan.  Put the tomato paste and chopped tomatoes in a pot to simmer, and chop some mushrooms while the meat browns.

Once it looks like this, add it to the tomato sauce with the chopped mushrooms.  Add garlic powder and oregano to season.

The sauce should look something like this.  Once the sauce is assembled and simmering, cook the noodles.

After the noodles are cooked and drained, it's time to assemble the lasagna!  First place down one layer of noodles.  Spread 1 large spoonful of sauce over the cottage cheese.  I use a large serving spoon heaping with sauce.  It should look something like this:

Add 1 large spoonful of cottage cheese and spread over the sauce, so that it looks about like this:

Add a layer of shredded mozzarella on top, then start again with the noodles and repeat.

After the second layer of noodles, sauce, and cottage cheese is complete, it should look something like this:

Add the remaining mozzarella cheese on top, then sprinkle generously with parmesan cheese.

Bake it in the oven at 375 F for 30-35 minutes.

And you're done!  It goes well with garlic bread and a side salad, and any leftovers can be frozen and easily reheated in either the microwave or oven.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 28 oz can peeled crushed tomatoes
• 1 12 oz can tomato paste
• 1 tbs oregano (appx - add to taste)
• 1 tbs garlic powder (appx - add to taste)
• 1 container of chopped mushrooms 
• 1 package lasagna noodles
• 6 cups grated/shredded mozzarella
• 2 24 oz cottage cheese (low fat)
• 1 c grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 F.
• Brown the ground beef in a sauce pan.
• Put the tomato paste and crushed tomatoes into a pot and let heat while the beef browns.  Chop the mushrooms.
• Add the ground beef and mushrooms to the tomatoes and let sauce simmer.
• Cook the noodles per package instructions.
• Drain noodles and assemble the lasagna as follows:
• Layer of noodles
• Spoonful of sauce spread evenly over noodles
• Spoonful of cottage cheese spread evenly over sauce
• Mozzarella cheese spread evenly over cottage cheese
• Depending on the size of your lasagna tray, this makes 2-3 layers.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese on the top layer.
• Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes.  Alternatively, you can cook in the microwave on power 7 for 15-20 minutes, but the oven tastes better in my opinion.

Inspiration for this recipe comes from my mom :)